Professional Practice Course for Medical Physics Residents: Development, Experience, and Evaluation
Abstract
Purpose
Professionalism education in a medical physics residency program is often based on ad hoc experiences with no real instruction on professionalism skills during the course of the residency. Recent publications have concluded that there is a strong need and demand for formalized professionalism education to satisfy CAMPEP requirements. Our program developed and implemented a professionalism curriculum. We describe our experience in developing a professionalism course and a formative evaluation method based on Gibbs self-reflection exercises.
Methods
Our medical physics residency program spans 5 hospitals and currently has 11 residents with expansion to about 20 residents in two years. We have developed 19 professionalism modules to be delivered in either virtual or in-person sessions over the course of one academic year. These modules span the categories of: Career, Job Search, Ethics, Human Performance, Project management, and medical physics practice. Content is delivered by subject matter experts for each module. Following the completion of a category, the students complete a reflective practice essay based on The University of Edinburgh reflection toolkit. Six reflective essays are written by each student and evaluated by the course coordinators. Anonymized feedback after each module is solicited from the residents to improve and modify the course.
Results
Our initial pilot course was developed by the authors and delivered at one of the five cancer centres to four residents over the course of one academic year. Feedback surveys from this small cohort of residents was used to improve and add content. In our current year, the course is being offered to residents at all cancer centres affiliated with the program. Reflective practice exercises and evaluations are ongoing in this current year.
Conclusion
We have developed a structured professionalism education course for a large medical physics residency program which includes expert lecturers and self-reflection essays and evaluation by the residents.